Electronic books have been growing in popularity in recent years primarily in hardware applications, and have limited interactive features. A major problem with electronic books is that the electronic books are limited to displaying general fiction and non fiction topics and are not useful for displaying and education students in science, engineering and other technical topics.
Still another problem with electronic type books is that they generally have a single screen with a flat image, that does not have the look and feel of classical books, and typically limited to one or two-page displays. Another problem with electronic books is that the computer screen (both desktop and laptop types) does not replicate a full page of a book, and instead has part of it.
Various types of systems and methods have been proposed for using portable devices to display publications. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,761,485 to Munyan; U.S. Pat. No. 5,937,158 to Uranka; U.S. Pat. No. 6,229,502 to Schwab; U.S. Pat. No. 6,933,928 to Lilienthal; U.S. Pat. No. 6,959,425 to Krauklis; U.S. Pat. No. 6,966,026 to Sommerer; U.S. Pat. No. 7,017,159 to Baker; U.S. Pat. No. D449,606 to Lee et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,421,524 to Padgett; U.S. Pat. No. 6,313,828 to Chombo; U.S. Pat. No. 6,335,678 to Heutschi; and U.S. Pat. No. 7,260,781 to DeMello et al.
The Munyan '485 patent describes a personal electronic book system that requires extensive hardware to operate. The Uranka '158 patent describes techniques for customization for each user on a portable media in combination with use of the network with the focus on identifying and displaying information. The required customization techniques for each publication does not allow for uniformity of displaying printed publications.
The Schwab '502 describes an elaborate hardware driven hand-held digital data reader (hinged electronic book with two-face to face touch-screens) that functions like an electronic book and requires side thumb buttons on the side of the books and not on any of the pages.
Lilienthal '928 describes a portable device that displays and plays audio and video content like a DVD player but is not easily usuable to read books.
Krauklis '425 describes a system and method of managing scalable list of items for display on a portable device and not for easily displaying and manipulating books.
Sommerer '026 describes a system for managing a balanced view of generated pages on an electronic device with a rolling pair of lines basis.
Baker '159 describes a system for presenting book marks for small devices such cell phones and PDAs for use on small screen displays and not for regular sized books.
Lee '606 shows a hardware design of a “portable electronic book” that appears to resemble a laptop with removable cover and not for displaying full pages of open books.
Padgett '524 describes a talking book with microphone that is generally limited to recording and playing an audio recordings.
Chombo '828 describes a hardware system of a hinged two display electronic book having various size buttons controls and does not have an efficient operating system.
Heutschi '678 describes a electronic touch screen devices for a display of electronic book that is connected to the network.
General proposals have been made for electronic books that usually require specific hardware components that may allow for displaying simple fiction and general nonfiction type content, but are not applicable at all for technical books, and the like. Such technical books like those used in various sciences, mathematics, engineering and the like, are not able to be used with the prior art. Thus, the need exists for solutions to the problems with the prior art, namely, the need for a software platform that handle the display and interactive interaction of readers with the technical book contents.